It’s a sprint to go digital during this pandemic.
In today’s world, more and more people are striving to be online personalities and build a brand for themselves. This undoubtedly leads to a higher demand for content creation tools or better yet, content creation ecosystems. Kids wanted to be astronauts and now they want to be YouTubers – and so there’s a huge market for digital tools and services catered towards the rapidly growing creator economy.
1 in 3 Kids Want to Become YouTubers
Social media exposure and influencer culture is creating a new paradigm for career aspirations with the younger generations. For many decades, our world of entertainment and news were run by “big media” – a relatively small number of companies that controlled what information we consumed. When people discovered that the internet can be used for more than information gathering and storing, social media was created and it decentralized the media.
This emerging creator economy provides opportunities for tech companies to develop content creation ecosystems.
What is a Creator Economy?
It is the class of businesses built by the 50M+ content creators, which includes bloggers, social media influencers, and videographers, as well as the software and financial tools designed to help them grow their platform and monetize their content. The creator economy saw a record USD $1.3B in funding in 2021 alone.
Top Three Trends
- Creators are moving their top fans off social networks and onto their own websites, apps, and other monetization platforms.
- Creators are becoming founders and business owners by turning their name and lifestyle into brands.
- Creators are gaining more power in the media ecosystem – there’s a new class of celebrities now.
The biggest trend we’re seeing is how, over time, creators are diversifying their revenue streams and are moving towards being directly funded by fans. They’re shifting from being paid by social platforms with ad revenue shares or brand sponsorship, to being paid directly by their community. This can include patronage, subscriptions, tipping, NFTs, and merchandise sales.
Big platforms are fighting to keep their creators on the platforms to drive engagement; however, creators are looking for more ways to break past these income gatekeepers.
Digital content has never been more important, and today's creators are always looking for new ways to manage, monitor, and monetize their online assets. The creator economy is still growing and being defined. For example, there's varying skills in financial literacy with creators, and this has translated into a market opportunity for financial tools in the creator economy.
